Tour de France 2024: stage one from Florence to Rimini – live | Tour de France 2024

148 km left: The peloton closed the gap now to a sub-five minute gap on this descent.

155 km left: Izaguirre shows his class by taking the lead at the start of the mountain classification, Maduas second, ahead of Abrahamsen and Van Den Broek.

157 km left: Cavendish probably couldn’t have imagined a more difficult first stage of three category two climbs. He has less than a kilometer to go to the top of the first of these, but the front of the peloton picks up the pace at just the wrong time and is already almost a minute ahead.

158 km left: There is a bit of concern for Mark Cavendish, who is lagging behind the peloton. He’s about 15 seconds behind and his teammates douse him with water in an apparent attempt to cool him down. Come on Cav, only get to stage three and your chance is there.

160 km to go: The lead back to the peloton is now 5min 30sec, a significant gap. “Free time,” says Miller on communications. I often feel it’s the commentator’s job to talk about the breakaway, but with people like Izagirre it’s worth tracking how much time these riders are given.

164 km left: TotalEnergies’ Vercher dropped off the back of the break and is working his way back to the peloton, so two in and one out in the lead group.

Sounds like summer has begun for William Preston, who emails:

Thus begins the best period of each and every year. He’s also really special. We have quite a few good GC contenders looking to be beaten from the start on this massively difficult opening stage and the world should be wishing Cavendish another win.

It would be rude to think that other sprinters may realize this, letting him have it early in the hope that he will then retire from the Tour after this stage win to live, and rightly so, on the fairytale for his stirring heroism. This would allow them to sort out the rest of the race themselves.

Anyway, here’s to three great weeks and a wonderful weekend.

165 km to go: Abrahamsen’s efforts are rewarded, he drags Gibbons with him and the Uno-X now have their precious place in the breakaway. The leaders have about 7.3km to go until they reach the top and can fight for the first mountain points.

166 km to go: The leaders have about three minutes in the peloton, so it seems unlikely we’ll see an early charge from the favorites just yet. Of course, everything can change on the lumps and bumps.

168 km left: The breakaway group is officially on the climb, the two in pursuit pulling away and now just 40 seconds behind.

171 km left: Uno-X Mobility and Lidl-Trek sent a few poursuiavnts up the road to bridge the gap to the breakaway. Jonas Abrahamsen cut the gap to under a minute, Lidl-Trek’s Ryan Gibbons just sitting on the wheel of the Uno-X man.

Richard Cutler emails a prediction:

I really have no idea, but someone in my Velogames group thinks Mathieu van der Poel will do it today and maybe keep the yellow for a week. Me, I have 10p on Giulio Ciccone at 35/1 for no other reason than I read somewhere that someone thought he would win today.

Like I said, no idea, but I’ll buy a big 99 flake later if it comes!

William Fotheringham tipped Ciccone in his preview, so it wasn’t a terrible shout. Not getting much change for a large 99 with flakes from these returns these days.

188 km left: We finally have a breakout. Sandy Dujardin, Matteo Vercher (TotalEnergies), Frank Van Den Broek (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Clement Champoussen (Arkea-B&B), Ion Izaguirre (Cofidis), Valentin Maduas (Groupama-FDJ) and Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious). Uno-X Mobility have missed this and are desperately chasing but so far to little avail.

192 km left: We have another group trying to get away, Warren Bargill and Simon Geschke were busy in the early stages but they are certainly too talented to be allowed in the breakaway.

194 km left: There is still no break and David Miller reckons that won’t happen now until we reach the first climb at around 176km when the peloton climbs the Col de Valico tre Faggi.

201km to go: A large group has formed at the front but looks too big to let go.

205 km left: And we are leaving, the flag fell and Tour de France 2024 is running correctly.

Please email me your predictions. For what it’s worth, I’m backing Tom Pidcock to spring a surprise today. A good week of mountain biking follows, an impactful stage with several second-category climbs.

Close to kilometer zero now, who will want to break early doors?

The Tour de France but Italy did. Florence, setting off from Piazza della Signoria, riders rolling across Le Ponte Vecchio, they’ve done the whole Italian thing about it. Competitors are still deploying and have about 8km to go before the flag drops.

Here’s a look at today’s stage, Saturday 29 June: Florence to Rimini, 206km, with William Fotheringham review.

First the Grand Départ in Italy, ironically when cycling talent in this traditional heartland is vanishingly scarce. There will be almost no Italians on the start list and zero prospect of a repeat of Italy’s last overall win, Vincenzo Nibali’s in 2014. The dramatically tough opening stage suits the strong talent of Giulio Ciccone; however, with three second category climbs, who would bet against Thaddeus Pogacar trying to gain an early advantage?

We’ll be in Florence soon and we’ve been loading up on previews all week.

Where else to start but Cav?

This weekend we will see a true great remembered for all his flaws.

The contenders to be in the yellow jersey in Paris.

Here’s your guide to each team.

And, of course, stage by stage.